Pause the crazy... just for a second...

hi :)

it's so nice to peek in here once in a while, see what's going on with  y'all. what's new?

I think I said I'd post about robotics. Seeing as last Tuesday was ship day... might as well post now :P

Starting with what-in-heck-is-robotics-anyway:

FRC stands for FIRST Robotics Competition. FIRST stands for "For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology".

FRC is a competition between teams of high school students; every year FIRST introduces the teams to a new game, demonstrating how to score, what the penalties are, and other aspects of the game. Then the teams are given six weeks (you read that correctly) to build a fully functional robot that can work with  two other robots against a team of three robots to win that game.

This year, the game is similar to soccer; each team has two goals, and teams can score by getting soccer balls into their own goals. However: there are two speed bumps that separate the field into three equal sections... one for the blue team, one for the midfield, and one for the red team. We can only have one of our robots in the opponents' side at a time... so the blue team can only have on robot on the red side, and vice versa. Once the balls are scored, they're put back into the game; we have two minutes and fifteen seconds to score as much as we can. If you'd like to see an animation, click here

Moving on :)

 Our six weeks are up. We shipped away the robot so that FIRST knows we haven't touched it after Ship Day. We can still work on software and such, but not as much as we could during build season. Then we have a competition in Phoenix in March, and a competition in Long Beach two weeks after. If we win either of those competitions, we qualify to go on to the National Championship in Atlanta.

And there it is.

Throughout this whole time--from the beginning of build season to the end of the Championship--I get to be with other robot nerds, both peers and adults, and learn together. We get to dig into physics and how things work and math and computers and logic. We get to laugh and tease each other and eat at McDonald's. It's surprising how good McDonald's can taste at robotics. We have competitions to see who can make the tallest stack of Big Mac boxes, and who can make their measuring tape reach the ceiling, and who can kick the soccer ball the farthest. Not to mention who can run the farthest to get the soccer ball back. We work together every weekend for three months, and every night for a week. We yell at each other and forgive each other and struggle with communication. We spend an hour working on something that (always afterward) someone else shows us how to do in a minute. We try out new ideas and surprise ourselves when they work. We realize that being wrong is okay but being right is nice, too.

There if anywhere else we realize that humans are fallible--and how amazing it is that God is perfect.

I don't think I CAN sum up what robotics has given me... but I will try.

My team has given me a safe place to make mistakes in, and to grow in.
My team has given me people who are like-minded and caring, who won't let me give up on myself.
My team has given me a chance to learn how I react to people.
My team has given me time to practice living in the real world while still under protection.
My team has given me a headache. A year-long headache at that.
My team has given me space to write! and the people to help me refine my writing.
My team has given me a push, made me work to learn and to experience.
My team has given me the opportunity to be wrong and not condemned.
My team has given me friends.
My team has given me frustration.
My team has given me a chance to excel.
My team has given me sore fingers from fixing machine chain, headaches from paint fumes, backaches from lifting 133-lb robots, and heartaches from stilted relationships.
My team has given me something to be excited for, something to motivate me.
My team has given me people to love, and to learn about, and to know. People to experience.

My team has given me eyes to see one aspect of love.

and all FIRST's promotional material, websites, rules, and ideals could not have done that.

...


~{^>^}~

This week, basically...